The Future Starts Today

The "Three Seas Initiative" has
politically and conceptually matured and all the conditions have been met in
order to be able to start concrete projects" is the conviction expressed by the
head of the Romanian state, Klaus Iohannis, during the summit that has brought
together in Bucharest this week, high officials from Europe and the United
States.

The European Commission
president, Jean Claude Juncker and the US Secretary for Energy, Rick Perry were
among the participants in the event. Economic projects for the development of
the region stretching between the Baltic, the Adriatic and the Black Seas were
high on the agenda of the two-day Summit in Bucharest. The "Three Seas Summit"
is a flexible political platform, which includes the 12 EU members between the
three aforementioned seas: Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic,
Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.

The summit was aimed at making
concrete headway in the process of increasing the region's inter-connectivity
in three main directions - energy, transport and digitization. "The Initiative
has the potential to facilitate an increased interconnectivity in Central and
Southeastern Europe, step up economic and trade relations and boost investment
in the region also with other partners from the Euro-Atlantic community.
Therefore we are advocating this initiative's contribution to the general
consolidation of the European Union and the Transatlantic relation" the
Romanian president added. A series of projects have been presented during the
event, but all the parties involved have been pleading their causes. Let's find
out more from Dan Dungaciu, director of the Institute for Political Sciences
and International Relations with the Romanian Academy

Dan Dungaciu: "Summits are like microwave
ovens. They don't bake the food. You must bring in the dish, which has already
been prepared, you can warm it up but cannot start cooking right there, you
know. Participants in a summit don't get an idea all of a sudden and start
building up projects just like that. They actually come to present projects
that have already been worked out. Of course they are looking for
opportunities, but these opportunities are being considered in relation to
their projects. The big discussion is actually around these issues; who cooked
the food? Was it well-cooked and well-done? Is it to the liking of others? This
is what summits are all about."

The Three Seas Initiative
was launched in 2015 starting from the premise that Central Europe will become
the backbone of a solid Europe based on three pillars: economic convergence,
cohesion at European level and a strong trans-Atlantic relation, reminded the
president of Croatia, Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic. The Croat president is the one
who launched the Initiative three years ago together with her Polish
counterpart Andrzej Duda. She also highlighted that a Business Forum was held for
the first time on the sidelines of the Three Seas Initiative summit in
Bucharest.

The participants
in the summit also underlined that energy security remained a prerequisite for
implementing innovation and boosting the common potential. As president of the
EU Council, Austria will try to finalize the EU package on clean energy, said
Alexander van der Bellen, the president of this country, which will hand over
the rotating presidency to Romania on January 1, 2019. The Austrian president
also said that the common goal should be to ensure energy security for all
European citizens, and for that purpose energy sources and conveyance routes
should be diversified. Here is Dan Dungaciu with more on the importance of such
a summit.

Dan Dungaciu: "Such a summit is
important for its potential. It provides the opportunity for a country, a
member of the EU and NATO, to materialize certain things in one way or another.
Secondly, I would say that we are part of an initiative that was developed by
actors with major interests on the north-south economic axis. Significant
issues are being discussed, such as infrastructure, transport or energy, which
are on the north-south Axis, an important axis. But I would say that this axis
is not the most important from Romania's perspective. If Romania was to create
a regional project and a European project, it should have created a project on
the East-West Axis. Why? Because today's main stake for Romania is to get
interconnected, to get connected with the western players. Today it has become
clearer than ever before that having resources doesn't necessarily make you a
hub. Therefore, Germany, Turkey, Hungary do not have energy resources but they
are very significant regional hubs and are becoming more and more important by
the day. So Romania should get connected with this, should aspire to this."

The Three Seas
Initiative comes to support the common goal of the EU, namely to get the East
closer to the West, said the European Commissioner for Regional Development,
Corina Cretu, at the Business Forum held on the sidelines of the Three Seas
Initiative summit in Bucharest.